Early Morning Wake-Up Call

This morning, Doug and I were woke up a little before 5 am to the sound of things resetting from the electricity going on and off. Then we noticed how strong the wind, rain and lightening was. Doug grabbed the weather radio and headed downstairs in search of a flash light. I went and peeked on Dallas ~ there was enough light from the lightening that I could see he was sleeping like a rock! After listening to the radio and hearing no reports of tornadoes, we decided to go back to bed. Before go upstairs, Doug looked out the back door and saw this...


Of course, I took this picture later in the morning, but it was clear (at 5 am and through the heavy rain) that we lost a tree. I was worried about my car...but I didn't want to go out in the storm to check on it. I mean, the tree was already down...so the damage was done. Luckily, when I went out later this is what I found...


The tree missed Lily! Good thing because just this last week I had the collision and comp taken off her insurance! I would have been really upset had she been totaled in the storm. The tree also missed the shed that sits at the back of our property. It was all a close call.

Here are a few more pictures of the downed tree...





As far as my garden...we can only say our prayers that it will recover. All the plants are either bent over or broken. And my tomatoes were doing so well...


The broccoli


The pepper plants...


The other main worry for Doug sat in when we saw that corn was laying over in the field beside the house. If hybrid corn is laying over...that means real bad news for the inbred corn that Doug's department raises. Here's a picture of the corn beside the house - I haven't talked to Doug yet to find out what their nursery is like.


Here's a look down the road in front of the house...


Finally, the log that is in the ditch was in the road. A passing van hit it and busted it up when we were getting ready to pick up the other sticks in the road. A neighbor stopped and helped move what remained of the log to the ditch.


All in all, we survived our early morning wake-up. The rain gauge showed just over a tenth of an inch, but the website I checked showed between a half inch and an inch. I think the wind was blowing so much that we didn't get an accurate reading. Also, our neighbor said he heard the winds were 65-70 mph, but he thought it felt a lot stronger than that. I just got off the phone with my friend Laura who said she heard the winds were up over 80 mph - nearing 100 mph!!! I will tell you this, I felt the house shaking this morning, and I thought the windows were going to rattle themselves out.

That's all from us.

Until next time...